vessels from Tromsoe were lost in the ice;
the Swedish expedition, which that year started for the north, could
not, as was intended, erect its winter dwelling on the Seven
Islands, but was compelled to winter at the more southerly Mussel
Bay; and the Austrian expedition under the leadership of Payer and
Weyprecht was beset by ice a few hours after its campaign had
commenced in earnest. It is well known how this carefully equipped
expedition afterwards for two winters in succession drifted about in
the Polar Sea, until it finally came to a standstill at a previously
unknown land lying north of Novaya Zemlya, which was named after the
Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef. These two expeditions, however, did
not touch the territory of the _Vega's_ voyage, on which account I
cannot here take any further notice of them.[181] But the same year
a wintering took place on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, of which
I consider that I ought to give a somewhat more detailed account,
both because in the course of it one of the most gallant Polar
voyagers of Norway met his fate, and because it shows us various
new, hitherto untouched sides of winter life in the High North.

SIVERT TOBIESEN was one of the oldest and boldest of the Norwegian
walrus-hunting skippers; he had with life and soul devoted himself
to his calling, and in it was exposed to many dangers and
difficulties, which he knew how to escape through courage and skill.
In 1864 he had sailed round the northeastern part of North-east
Land, and had been very successful in hunting; but as he was about
to return home, his vessel was beset by ice near the southern
entrance to Hinloopen Strait, where the same fate also overtook two
other hunting sloops, one of them commanded by the old hunting
skipper MATTILAS, who in the winter of 1872-73 died in a tent at
Grey Hook, the other by the skipper J. ASTROM. They were compelled
to save themselves in boats, in which they rowed through Hinloopen
Strait to the mouth of Ice Fjord, where the shipwrecked crews were
met and saved by the Swedish expedition of 1864. He passed the
winter of 1865-66 happily, in a house built for the purpose on Bear
Island, and communicated to the Swedish Academy of Sciences a series
of valuable meteorological observations, made during the
wintering.[182] After 1868 he had made several successful voyages to
Novaya Zemlya, some of which were also remarkable from a
geographical point of view, and in 1872 he was also on a